Rapid onset of a Comptonisation zone in the repeating tidal disruption event XMMSL2 J140446.9-251135

We report here on observations of a tidal disruption event (TDE), XMMSL2 J1404-2511, discovered in an XMM-Newton slew, in a quiescent galaxy at z = 0.043. X-ray monitoring covered the epoch when the accretion disc transitioned from a thermal state, with kT ∼ 80 eV, to a harder state dominated by a w...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Saxton, Richard D., Wevers, Thomas, Velzen, S. van, Alexander, Kate, Liu, Z., Mummery, A., Giustini, Margherita, Miniutti, Giovanni, Fuerst, Felix, Kajava, J.J.E., Read, A. M., Jonker, P.G., Rau, Arne, Li, Dongyue
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Recursos:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/411589
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/411589
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Accretion
X-rays: galaxies
Accretion disks
Galaxies: nuclei
Galaxies: individual: XMMSL2 J140446.9–251135
Descrição
Resumo:We report here on observations of a tidal disruption event (TDE), XMMSL2 J1404-2511, discovered in an XMM-Newton slew, in a quiescent galaxy at z = 0.043. X-ray monitoring covered the epoch when the accretion disc transitioned from a thermal state, with kT ∼ 80 eV, to a harder state dominated by a warm, optically thick corona. The bulk of the coronal formation took place within 7 days and was coincident with a temporary drop in the emitted radiation by a factor 4. After a plateau phase of ∼100 days, the X-ray flux of XMMSL2 J1404-2511 decayed by a factor 500 within 230 days. We estimate the black hole mass in the galaxy to be MBH = 4 ± 2 × 106 M⊙ and the peak X-ray luminosity LX ∼ 6 × 1043 ergs s−1. The optical/UV light curve is flat over the timescale of the observations with Lopt ∼ 2 × 1041 ergs s−1. We find that TDEs with coronae are more often found in an X-ray sample than in an optically selected sample. Late-time monitoring of the optical sample is needed to test whether this is an intrinsic property of TDEs or is due to a selection effect. From the fast decay of the X-ray emission we consider that the event was likely due to the partial stripping of an evolved star rather than a full stellar disruption, an idea supported by the detection of two further re-brightening episodes, two and four years after the first event, in the SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey.